Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Thank you Old Fashioned Marriage for nominating me for the The Very Inspiring Blogger Award. I visit their blog quite frequently and if you haven’t already visited their blog, do take a moment to do that, and let them know what you enjoyed most about it. The rules of the award are simple:

1. Display the award logo on your blog.
2. Link back to the person who nominated you.
3. State 7 things about yourself.

4. Nominate 5 other bloggers for this award and link to them.
5. Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award’s requirements.

So here goes:

1. I home schooled my 3 oldest kids until they were in 5th grade – when they asked to enter public school. My answer to all who routinely asked “how long are you going to do this” was always “until it doesn’t work anymore!”. The eldest graduated high school as 10/1500 so I think I did an ok job!

2. Our first daughter was a HoneyMoon surprise. Baby #2 was a #NursingAsBirthcontrol#doesn’twork baby!

3. I am an introvert by nature, but my role as mom of 7 and full time volunteer requires that I ‘pretend’ to be outgoing a lot of the time.

4. Henry and I met and became best friends in our 20’s. We both dated and became engaged to others before realizing our mutual physical attraction for each other. That process (friends to marriage) took 5 years and the mutual attraction has not faded since the first sighting!

5. In my 20’s I would have said “I want to be a professional working woman and maybe have 1-2 kids, who I would happily put into daycare” … Ya, none of that happened (my professional working woman job laid me off during my maternity leave and I never looked back!).

6. I have curly hair that I blowout straight causing people to ask “where does your 6 year old get her curly hair?”

7. Finding out about ttwd, red pills and feminist agenda radically changed my life and my marriage … All for the better!

Please take a moment to visit the blogs of our nominees and read some of their posts. I have learned much from our fellow bloggers, and encourage you to explore some new blogs and see what you can learn today.

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I haven’t called my grandma yet this week. My call is 2 days late. She won’t mention it (not her style), but I will feel it. Why haven’t I called her? Probably because each conversation brings it more clearly into focus that she is moving here. I love my grandma. When I was growing up her and I were very close until we moved 1100 miles away; and then she wrote me letters (which I still have) twice a week. She was my matron of honor. I am trying to paint a picture for you that grandma is a person that I ‘like’. For the past 10+ years Henry and I have paid to have her visit 2-3 times a year. My kids love grandma. Her and my mom are not overly close (more on that later), which is why grandma is coming to live in our very busy house instead of with her daughter and son-in-law in a relatively empty house. I am the one that has orchestrated this transition because …well… because I love my grandma and I realize she can no longer live alone. I’d say 99% of the time I am the person calling the shots. Until recently …

I keep surprising myself at how quick I can swing between surrender and control. Do you ever feel like that? Prior to deciding that Henry was the leader and that I would follow him, I rarely thought about how quickly I begin to control everything and everyone in my path whenever stress rises up in my life. And I have 7 kids! Stress is always rising up. I am really comfortable when Henry is able to step in and ‘handle’ things; but almost daily (maybe hourly?) I censor what I will tell him and what I will ‘handle alone’. And it’s the decision for me to ‘handle it alone’ it that ends poorly for me, if you get my drift.

How’s it going to be with grandma in our house? I will need to ‘handle’ the care and coordination of another person. I wonder if I’ll let Henry into my isolation bubble or if I’ll push him away.

I really love writing down my thoughts b/c it brings a lot of clarity and seems to be allowing me to answer some of my own questions … Why haven’t I called grandma? Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Fear of my relationship with her changing. But since Fear of Not Living Up to Expectations is bigger right now, I think I will go and make that call…

~Liz

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This weekend was long; And hard. All week long it’s been building and by Friday I was out of sorts and feeling overwhelmed with grandma’s impending move to our home. When I feel overwhelmed, I trying to control everything and push Henry away. It’s as though I can’t let him into my ‘isolation bubble’ (as he called it this weekend) and I soon spiral. Friday night was tough; we should have had maintenance, but it was a busy night and Henry thought maybe I didn’t need it since we had an unexpected session Thursday morning. I think maintenance would have shattered my ‘isolation bubble’. When it didn’t happen, I didn’t feel irritated, mad or let down but in hind sight I should have told him where I was headed.

Saturday morning was worse and I was in rare form; controlling everyone in the house – or driving them all crazy. By that evening I didn’t want to submit my spirit and I held on for longer than I care to admit. A comment posted by A Voice of Experience yesterday was insightful.

Why I couldn’t let my guard down? I don’t know actually where I was at or why I was holding out. I accepted and in the end I did submit. When he felt I had all I could take, I wasn’t all lovey but nor did I close myself off; I just didn’t really want to talk. I needed time to reflect and think about how I ended up so ‘out there’ and how much I disliked the consequences. Thankfully he gave that to me and by Sunday morning I could come back to him and re-assume my place next to him. Does any of that make sense?

We had to drive 4 hours to visit our daughter for parents’ day on Sunday and it gave us the time we needed to talk about the weekend. In the end Henry and I did learn a lot Saturday night. We have so much to learn. We discussed the nuts and bolts. But we also had a very transparent conversation where I explained how I can effectively ‘bluff’ to stay distant and I gave Henry some insight into ‘calling my bluff’. It was humbling for me. It seems like since we’ve started this journey, I am seeing how much I protect myself and don’t let anyone else in, him included. Now when even a small layer is peeled away I feel a desperate need to run away and hide. But why? Henry is trustworthy. He is a patient and kind man. He’s a God fearing man. My conclusion is this: God is using Henry to show me that I have spent the last 45 years talking the talk – but not really walking the walk. That may make no sense. What I mean is I say ‘I trust Henry’, but time and again I push him out at the times I need him the most. Why? Because surely I can do it all!!?? Yeah, probably not though and so I am walking a new road. Now with grandma’s impending move here, I will soon realize that I can’t do it all and I need Henry.

I can truthfully say that I did NOT like Saturday night. I didn’t like distance between him and I or seeing just how quickly I jumped back into my controlling self. Thank God every day is new .